We are a grass roots organization located in both Israel and the United States. Our intention is to be pro-active on behalf of Israel. This means we will identify the topics that need examination, analysis and promotion. Our intention is to write accurately what is going on here in Israel rather than react to the anti-Israel media pieces that comprise most of today's media outlets.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

"Hamas and More"

Arlene Kushner

Correction: Spell check doesn't pick up errors in numbers and this typo slipped by me. The correct fax number for PM Netanyahu, if dialed from the States is: 011-972-2-670-5369. I apologize for any inconvenience.

(The general rule for dialing from the States is to dial 011-972, then drop the 0 from the area code or from the beginning of a cell phone number and proceed with the rest of the number.) Yesterday Vice President Biden addressed the AIPAC conference, and he sang the very same administration song as we've been hearing in other quarters.

President Obama, he told the delegates gathered, is "strongly and personally committed to achieving what all have basically said is needed - a two-state solution..."

Then he made a link between Iran and a peace agreement with the Palestinians: "One of the most pressing reasons may be to deprive Iran of the ability to extend its destabilizing influence."

Well, he's got that absolutely backwards too. For the possibility to achieve peace with the Palestinians is far greater if we defang Iran first. In fact, there are statements from Netanyahu regarding the absolute impossibility of reaching peace here until the Iran issue is confronted. I've written extensively about Hamas -- the "elephant in the room" -- making a viable peace impossible. Hamas is funded and guided from Teheran.

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And here we have it:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after a meeting in Damascus yesterday, told journalists that they continue to support “Palestinian resistance.” The two were conducting meetings with the key Hamas officials in Damascus.

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And with regard to Hamas...I indicated yesterday that there will likely be a separate Hamas government in Gaza. If a final unity government agreement is not achieved at a May 16 meeting, they are likely to proceed. Apparently Ismail Haniyeh -- who was briefly the prime minister of a 2007 joint Fatah-Hamas government -- is slated to be prime minister.

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But Hamas has also gone public in another venue, as politburo head in Damascus, Khaled Mashaal (newly elected to another term), has just given an interview to the NY Times.

What is obvious here is that Mashaal is playing to the Obama administration, which has not yet recognized this group as a negotiating partner (but is on its way to doing so should Hamas join a unity government). "His [Obama's] language is different and positive," he said.

Shouldn't we take note of the fact that a jihadist terror group sees Obama's language as positive??

"I promise the American administration and the international community that we will be part of the solution, period," he intoned.

But he was not going to recognize Israel, for "There is only one enemy in the region, and that is Israel."

In light of Hamas intentions to be "part of the solution," Mashaal says Hamas has stopped firing rockets at Israel for now.

"Not firing the rockets currently is part of an evaluation from the movement which serves the Palestinians' interest. After all, the firing is a method, not a goal. Resistance is a legitimate right, but practicing such a right comes under an evaluation by the movement's leaders."

This is what Hamas is proposing:

Israel must return to '67 lines (which includes leaving eastern Jerusalem), dismantle settlements, and permit the "right of return."

In exchange, Hamas would offer a 10 year truce. Not a final cessation of hostilities. Oh, no. For 10 years Hamas would not fire rockets on us, and but would reserve the right to do so again thereafter. To secure this, we would have to move into indefensible borders and permit ourselves to be overrun by hostile Arab so-called refugees.

Actually, as I think about it, the cessation of rocket fire might be permanent, because at the end of 10 years with this formulation, there'd be so little of Israel left that Hamas might not want to bother.

I note that there is nothing said about cessation of smuggling weapons during that period of truce. Nor was it said that there would be a renunciation of terrorism -- which means Hamas, while not shooting rockets, could covertly foster terror attacks from which it distanced itself.

All in all, quite a deal, is it not? Mark my words, there will comments somewhere indicating that Hamas is moderating.

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Both Hamas and the PA have rejected Netanyahu's statements made by video to the AIPAC conference regarding readiness to enter talks without delay. This is no surprise, for he doesn't speak about a two-state solution.

What raises the blood pressure once again is this, however:

Tony Blair, envoy for the Quartet (i.e., the US, the UN, the EU, and Russia), has announced that the Quartet will be unveiling a new peace plan in a few weeks. It is being devised by the "highest level of the American administration."

Another attempt to dictate terms from the outside.

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According to Reuters, at a meeting of Non-Proliferation Treaty signatories yesterday, Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller was quoted as saying, "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea...remains a fundamental objective of the United States."

Uh oh. Big time. This hits at our essential right to protect ourselves.

Dov Weisglass, a former Israeli strategist, told Army Radio that these comments were alarming:

"If these statements indicate a change in American policy on this issue, I believe this may be the most worrisome development for Israel's security in many years."

Today, however, Israel Radio quoted an Israeli Foreign Ministry official as saying there was no significant shift in US policy on this matter.

I hope so, but I don't know. I have the sense that the world is upside down and that we are besieged on all sides.

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British journalist Melanie Phillips has my greatest respect and regard. I close today with excerpts from her latest piece, "Obama prepares to throw Israel under the bus.""...It is of course, by any sane standard, quite fantastic [i.e., incredible] that America is behaving as if it is Israel which is holding up a peace settlement when Israel has made concession after concession: giving up Sinai, giving up Gaza, offering all the territories to the Arabs in return for peace in 1967, offering more than 90 per cent of them ditto in 2000, ditto again to Mahmoud Abbas in the past year -- only to be attacked in return by a Palestinian terrorist entity, backed in its continued aggression, let us not forget, by the countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has made no concessions at all and is not being pressured to do so.

"It is not the aggressor here but the victim of aggression that America is now choosing to beat up. In any sane world, one might think the Americans would be piling the pressure on the Palestinians to renounce their genocidal ambitions against Israel, to stop teaching and training their children to hate and kill Jews, to adhere to the primary requirement in the Road Map that they must dismantle their infrastructure of violence as the first step in the peace process; one might think, indeed, that they would view Mahmoud Abbas'srepeated statements that the Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state to be the main impediment to peace.

"But no. The repeated professions that America will never jeopardise Israel's security are stomach churning when Obama is actually blaming Israel for measures it has taken to safeguard its security -- the settlements were always first and foremost a security measure, and the travel restrictions are there solely toprevent more Israelis being murdered -- and trying to force it to abandon them. Today comes further news that Obama will also try to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons -- which it only has as a last ditch insurance against the attempt to annihilate it to which several billion Arabs remain pledged.

"Of course Obama doesn't care that Hamas would run any Palestinian state. Of course he doesn't care that Israel would be unable to defend itself against such a terrorist state. Because he regards Israel as at best totally expendable, and at worst as a running sore on the world's body politic that has to be purgedaltogether (see this bleak assessment by Sultan Knish). His administration is proceeding on the entirely false analysis that a state of Palestine is the solution to the Middle East impasse and the route to peace in the region. What that state will look like or do is something to which at best the administration's collective mind is shut and at worst makes it a potential cynical accomplice to the unconscionable. So Israel is to be forced out of the West Bank. Far from building a coalition against Iran, Obama is thus doing Iran's work for it.

"None of this, however, should come as the slightest surprise to anyone who paid any attention to Obama's background, associations and friendships before he became President and to the cabal of Israel-bashers, appeasers and Jew-haters he appointed to his administration, with a few useful idiots thrown in forplausible deniability.

"...But the ordinary American people are a different matter. They do value and support Israel. They do understand that if Israel is thrown under that bus, the west is next. And it is they to whom Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu must now appeal, over the heads of the politicians and the media and certainly America's Jews and everyone else. He must tell the American people the terrible truth, that America is now run by a man who is intent on sacrificing Israel for a reckless and amoral political strategy which will put America and the rest of the free world at risk.

"This is shaping up to be the biggest crisis in relations between Israel and America since the foundation of Israel six decades ago. Those who hate Israel and the Jews will be gloating. This after all is precisely what they hoped Obama would do. To any decent person looking on aghast, this is where the moral sickness of the west reaches the critical care ward.(Emphasis added)

Phillips alludes to the "bleak assessment of Sultan Knish." She is referring to "Obama's plan to destroy Israel," written by NY- based, Israeli-born writer Daniel Greenfield , who posts as Sultan Knish: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/05/obamas-plan-to-destroy-israel.html.

Caroline Glick & Mark Levin: The Israeli Solution -- A One-State Pla

Why Israel Opposes International Forces in the Jordan Valley

U.S. scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel

Yet another indication of the absolute corruption of American academia today. "US scholars' group votes in favor of academic boycott of Israel," from the Jerusalem Post, December 16: NEW YORK – The 5,000-member American Studies Association (ASA), which describes itself as “the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to...http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/12/us-scholars-group-votes-in-favor-of-academic-boycott-of-israel.html

Israel Living Prophecy

A senior New Israel Fund officer told a U.S. official in 2010 that the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy, according to a document that was leaked by Wikileaks...She commented that she believed that in 100 years Israel would be majority Arab and that the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic.

Mideast expert Michael Widlanski: Fatah is a joke

US-Israeli talks focus on Ahmadinejad's possible ouster

How to exploit the deep cracks forming in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration for removing the Iranian president was a top item on the agenda of the high-level talks between Barack Obama's advisers and Israeli officials at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, Wednesday, July 29.

DEBKAfile's Iranian sources report that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is falling apart; of his original lineup of 21 ministers, only nine remain at their posts.

The Identity Of The Land

Why the Palestinians need to recognize the Jewish State

We do NOT support a 2-state solution

A January 2009 poll found that Americans oppose creating a Palestinian state by 45-31 percent. A February 2009 Maagar Mohot Survey Institute poll has also shown that Israelis oppose creating a Palestinian state by 51-32 percent.

Many other polls tell a similar story.

These figures suggest that Americans and Israelis have understood that creating a Palestinian state under current conditions will not bring peace but merely another terror state.

Netanya,Israel

Jerusalem At Night

Why reconstruct Gaza without making demands

- that Shalit be release without convicted terrorists being released by Israel in exchange,

- that the US be put in charge of the southern border to ensure that Hamas isn’t rearmed?

- that their three preconditions be accepted by Hamas, i.e. agree to all former agreements,recognize Israel and renounce terror

- that Hamas amend their Charter

- That Hamas disconnect from Iran

The answer is that they don’t want to.

Children of Hamas

Picture of Hamas children the media does not show you

IDF: Civilian Deaths in Gaza Less than 25% of Total

A maximum of 25% of the Palestinians killed in Gaza since the beginning of the Israeli operation are innocent civilians, the head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), Col. Moshe Levi, said Wednesday. According to Palestinian medical officials, Israel has killed some 1,000 Palestinians and more than half of them are civilians. Levi said the CLA had compiled a list with the names of 900 Palestinians killed during the fighting. He said that 150 names were of women, children and elderly, and that the maximum number of civilians killed so far was 250. Levi also dismissed claims that 43 Palestinians were killed in an IDF attack on a Hamas terror cell that was firing mortars at Israeli forces from within an UNRWA school in Jabalya. Levi said 21 Palestinians were killed in the attack, including a number of Hamas operatives. (Jerusalem Post)

Hamas teaching the children of Gaza

An Iranian reformist daily newspaper has criticized Hamas "for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals." This is reported in today's Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam. The Palestinian daily adds that in response the Iranian government has closed the newspaper.

"The Iranian news agency "Irna" reported yesterday, that the Iranian Culture Ministry has closed the reformist daily newspaper "Karjo Zaran", because it published a report that included criticism of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). On December 30 the paper published a statement of a reformist student organization, that has criticized Hamas for risking lives of civilians, amongst them children, by hiding its forces in nurseries and hospitals. The statement was published whilst the Iranian government expresses a unified stands against Israel, and Tehran is overwhelmed by demonstrations against Israel."

[Al-Ayyam, Jan. 1, 2009] Thanks PMW

Iran-backed Hamas Rocket, Mortar Attacks and Nuclear Developments

9,400+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2003. [1]3,200+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in 2008 alone. [2]6,500+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. [3]543+ rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israeli territory during the ceasefire from June 19 to Dec. 19, 2008. [4]28 deaths caused by rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into Israel since 2001. The dead include Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire ended, Iran-backed Palestinian groups in Gaza fired rockets and mortars that killed an Israeli-Arab construction worker and a mother of four who was seeking shelter in a bus station as a rocket warning siren sounded. [5]1,000+ people in Israel injured from rockets and mortars fired from Gaza since 2001, including Israelis, Palestinians and foreign workers. Since the ceasefire, 44 Israelis have been injured and 200 have been treated for shock. [6]Thanks Israel Project

It began with this...

The British Foreign Office, November 2nd, 1917Dear Lord Rothschild,I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate theachievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.2

Signed,Arthur James Balfour[Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs]

Favorite Books

While Europe Slept

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member

Syria is an Occupier-Are You Listening World?

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.

The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for UN Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the UN. In meticulous detail - supplemented by photographs and satellite images - the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated.

Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil - in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms which amount to an area of about 12 square miles.

It would be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject.

Information worth Possessing

"Israel gave the Palestinians an autonomy in 42% of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords in the early 90's. Over 92% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were then under the administration of the Palestinian Authority and its Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"Israel is surrounded by 10 hostile Arab countries who do not even recognize its right to exist ( Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Algeria, Lybia, Morocco, Tunisia, Aden) and Iran"